Pygmies.org is a website dedicated to the hunter-gatherer peoples living in Central African rainforests, commonly called Pygmies. The main aim of these pages is to provide an introduction to their cultures and to promote their protection, documenting their richness and showing some of the factors that increasingly threaten their survival.

This website has been created by the Italian anthropologist and writer Luis Devin. It presents photos, music, sounds and other material collected during his fieldwork among the Baka of Cameroon and Gabon and among other pygmy groups in the Western Congo Basin.A special thank goes to the Baka friends of the author as well as the other forest peoples who made his fieldwork in Central Africa possible over the years, always with great patience and affection, accepting him in their camps and in the extraordinary African rainforest world.

"Pygmy", a term with numerous mythological and ethnographic referents, derives from the Greek word Pygmaîos (via the Latin Pygmaeus), meaning approximately "one cubit high" (slightly less than 50 cm, or 18 inches, the distance from the elbow to the knuckles or fingertips).

A large Greek vase (The François Vase) with a depiction of the legendary battle between the Pygmies and the cranes ("geranomachia").

Homer was the first to mention the Pygmies, in the third book of the Iliad, referring to their legendary and eternal battle with the cranes: the geranomachia. Many centuries later (at the time of nineteenth-century explorations), when European explorers encountered African rainforest peoples, particularly small in stature, they thought to find an ethnographic confirmation of the ancient legend's origin. Hence, the arbitrary application of the Greek name of "Pygmies" to peoples who may have no connection  contrary to what is often claimed  with the legends of ancient Greece.

Anyway, when referring to African rainforest hunter-gatherers (as well as to any other people) it is always preferable to use the native name by which they call themselves (Baka, Bakola, etc.). However, we should also note that despite some differences (including the linguistic ones) these groups are characterized by cultural and somatic traits which are very homogeneous and clearly distinct from those of all other Central African peoples, and that there isn't an alternative term for "Pygmies" which can effectively indicate them all. It was therefore decided to freely use the term in the website's text and address, for that and other reasons (including its universal diffusion, the clear and generally shared link with its ethnographic referent, the site's informative purpose, etc..), but always bearing in mind that this term comes from a non-native word, arbitrarily assigned from outside.

Another representation of the battle between the Pygmies and the cranes, mentioned by Homer in the third book of the Iliad.

This section, which is the main one of the website, illustrates various areas of the culture of the Baka of Cameroon, Gabon and Congo, including hunting, fishing and gathering, material culture, traditional architecture, music and dances, daily life in the rainforest, etc. Plus the male initiation rite to the Spirit of the Forest.

* Alternate names: the Bedzan Pygmies are sometimes referred to as Bedjan Pygmies, Medzan, Bedzans, Bedjans or Medzans, or as Tikar Pygmies or pygmées de la plaine Tikar, in reference to the Tikar people with whom they live in close contact and with whom they share the language.

Introduction to BaKoya people, Villages and huts along the tracks (architecture based on BaKota models, etc.), Music and dance (single-skin drums, singers and dancers), Portraits of Bakoya women, Circumcision ceremonies of the BaKota (bantu) with BaKoya Pygmy songs and dances.

* Alternate names: the BaKoya Pygmies are sometimes referred to as Koya, Kola or Bakola Pygmies.

Italian concert tour of an Aka Pygmy group (from the rainforest of the Central African Republic), Music and dances(musical instruments, players and dancers), Backstage of the shows and concert rehearsals, Daily activities during the tour, Portraits of Aka men and women.

Audio-photographic diary of the author's fieldwork and daily life among the Baka and other Pygmy peoples (BaKola, Bedzan, BaKoya...), with photos and soudscapes. Images of the male initiation rite of the Baka that the author took part in. Fieldwork among other peoples in Central Africa (Fang, Bamiléké, Bamoun, Bamenda, Mankon, Bali, Bafut, BaKota, ecc.).

Pygmies.org is mostly a horizontal website. Most of the inside pages are, in fact, horizontally structured, in order to give more emphasis and clarity to photographic documents and other content. Therefore those pages have to be scrolled horizontally!

Pygmy Peoples, the African Rainforest Hunter-Gatherers. Page URL: http://www.pygmies.org/The time in the tropical rainforests of the Western Congo Basin, where the Baka and the other Pygmy peoples live, is 16:34.Every minute, at least 25 hectares (250.000 m²) of forest are destroyed around the world (source: WWF).